


The City is at War

by TradeMark_Deception



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Cities, Corruption, Derse and Prospit, Extreme Segregation, F/F, F/M, Faking Death, M/M, NOT COMPLETE YET, Prison Cities, Segregation, Surprisingly no one dies, The City is at War, greed - Freeform, prisons
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-30
Updated: 2014-12-30
Packaged: 2018-03-04 08:13:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3032549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TradeMark_Deception/pseuds/TradeMark_Deception
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All cities have a dark underground.  Even Prospit, the richest city, the Golden City, the Perfect City.  Prospit had Derse, the literal dark underground of Prospit.  Hatred, segregation, and corruption have created a sick order in the cities.  But no one expected this order to be shattered by a stubborn and somewhat naive fifteen year old boy.</p><p>This is the boy's story, and it starts with his name,</p><p>John Egbert</p>
            </blockquote>





	The City is at War

Prospit was the golden city, a city for the richest of the rich, the finest of the finest. Cut off from the rest of the world to keep their riches “pure” from whatever else existed. All the buildings and all the streets were lined with gold, a sign of sorts of the near unlimited riches be held in Prospit.

But, like every city, Prospit had a dark side. At first, Prospit was perfect, nothing bad existed in that city, then came greed. After all, the only way to get in to Prospit was money. Because money could get you anything you wanted.

People began suing, even killing, others out of greed. Then came drugs; crack, cocaine, LSD, and they spread like wildfire across the city and from that gangs formed.

But, of course, the “Perfect City” could not, and would not, be corrupted. So all the killers were round up and executed and the drug dealers and gangsters, well, they had an interesting punishment.

Since drug dealing and being a part of a gang was not punishable by death, they were sent to a prison. However, there was a slight problem, Prospit didn’t have a prison, after all it was a perfect city. And since Prospit didn’t have jail, they had to make one. After several votes and the discovery of a cavern the size of the twice city under Prospit, it was decided, the prison would be under Prospit. The prison city would be called Derse.

Construction began shortly after the final vote. Derse was almost an exact mirror image of Prospit expect it wasn’t built to last, it looked run down before construction was even over. If fact, it so run down before construction finished that the workers and the city didn’t even finish building the underground prison and they just sent all the drug dealers and gangsters without a care in the world.

For a while, the citizens of Prospit forgot about Derse as they continued sending criminals and sometimes the accused innocents to Derse. In fact, many didn’t know what was even happening in Derse but it wasn’t like Prospit cared.

As Prospit continued to send people to Derse, Derse began to form a society. They began sneaking back into Prospit to steal building materials to reinforce the buildings of Derse. They worked in teams to rebuild the prison city. They worked together and soon they formed a government. Sure, the government was not that stable, but it worked. Derse became known for it’s parties and bonfires.

Of course, when Derse was built, vents were built on the streets of Prospit but only enough to let in fresh air and a little light. And, like Prospit, Derse painted their buildings and streets, but, unlike Prospit, Derse painted their buildings and streets purple instead of gold. Derse also painted the entrances to Derse purple. After all, purple means no trespassing.

Pretty soon, Derse was it’s own city. The literal dark underbelly of Prospit.  The city that, to this day, sits in an eternal night.

For a while Prospit stopped sending people of any sort to Derse, instead, families of the unjustly accused moved down to Derse to be with family again.  It was touching in a sort of way, but what the families didn’t expect was the “culture shock”.  Derse had, and still has, an incredulity loose government.  Honestly, there is no _true_ government in Derse, the government is quite literally five moral codes written in purple paint on the side of the tallest building in the middle of the city.  The moral codes, or “Laws”, of Derse are these:

_1.      Do not kill other Dersites._

_2.      Do not steal from other Dersites._

_3.      Punish moral crimes the way you see fit, but do not kill or torture as punishment, as murder and torture are moral crimes._

_4.      If moral crime is committed, and there are witnesses, if the witnesses don’t take action, then the witnesses are just as guilty._

_5.      Lastly, if a Prospitian comes down and does not become a Dersite, whatever happens to the Prospitian is on their hands.  However, if a Dersite is protecting or housing the Prospitian, no harm is to come to them._

All Dersites have followed, and still follow these “Laws”, Derse was and is the definition of a self-governing city.  Prospit’s government is much more structured and heavily enforced, but because of that, there is, by default, more “crime” in Prospit then in Derse.

For a long time, the two cities left each other alone; Derse continued rebuilding itself and Prospit continued to get richer and richer.  Then there came a point in which wealthy Dersites could buy their way back into Prospit, that was the case for one of the most powerful families in all of Prospit, the Peixes.  But their story is for later.

And so many people began switching cities, affluent Dersites moved to Prospit and many Prospitians moved to Derse for the lifestyle.  This caused a dramatic shift in power in the cities, many truly corrupted people moved back to the “Perfect City” and spread their vile ideas of government and law enforcement.  Crimes could be punished by any means necessary as long as the government approved the punishment.  Citizens could vote on small matters but nothing else. The list goes on and on.

Sure, Prospit became corrupted but there was and still is good, kind people in Prospit; many of the good people would sneak stuff to Dersites.  If it wasn’t for those people, Derse would not be nearly well-off as it is.  Sadly, Prospit's government found out and forced those people into a prison and claimed the people committed treason against Prospit.

There was no racism, sexists, or homophobes in the governments of the cities.  The only thing that mattered was if you were a Prospitian or a Dersite; it was an idea enforced so much that, in Prospit, a law was created to set Prospitians apart from Dersites.  All Prospitians were/are to visibly wear something gold to show that they are Prospitian.  When this law was passed in Prospit, it became an unspoken rule in Derse to visibly wear something purple.  The law wasn’t really enforced at first, and still isn’t, but it was sense of loyalty to their cities that made the citizens to follow this law, this code.  This created a surreal and corrupted sense order.

All the laws and codes mentioned are still followed today in their respected cities, along with the sick sense of order.  But this order was about to be shattered by a young man and his beliefs.

This is the story of said young man, his friends, and his father.  This is story of the young man, a stubborn and rather naïve boy of fifteen.

This is the story of John Egbert.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is so late! I'm so sorry! I've been busy and lazy! Hope you enjoy this fic! But just a warning, the characters do talk about some fucked stuff in later chapters. Just a warning. Anyways, enjoy! Comments are welcome! I'll shut up now.


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